Day Seventy-Two: Batman Beginnings
A quick one today, I think. One of the most recognisable superheroes of them all, perhaps only coming second to Superman in terms of how much he has pervaded the popular consciousness, is Batman. For many years, his comics have been trendsetters (Frank Miller's work on The Dark Knight Returns was one of two comics which changed superheroes for good in the 1980s), and he's barely been away from our TV and cinema screens. In fact, since 1989, there hasn't been a time when there wasn't a Batman movie or TV show in development, on release or on the small screen.
Naturally, you have to take the crunchy with the smooth. The Batman most people know is not the Tim Burton gotharama, or even the Joel Schumacher neon abominations, and I'm sad to say that it's definitely not the Warner Brothers 1990s animated version. It's the Biff! Pow! Boff! Adam West version, which ran for two and a half seasons beginning in 1966. It was a massive hit, and magically stocked utility belts, dangerously high campness levels and multiple utterances of "Holy [insert word or phrase of your choice here], Batman!" became inextricably linked with the character. Here's the intro to jog your memory.
Of course, some of that was done away with when Burton made his grim movie in 1989. Gone was the Silver Age bonkers attitude, and in was an ethos aimed at putting the "dark" back into "Dark Knight". One of the best parts of that, of course, was the excellent Danny Elfman theme, as on display here.
Nowadays, Ver Kids have gone all funky animation and bright colours, and they have a Batman cartoon with a guitar that sounds slightly like a cat with its tail trapped in a cupboard door, performed (by which I mean "knocked off in an hour") by the Edge. It's a step up from the days when he used to fight Liberace, though. See what you make of it.
Of course, no collection of intros to Batman movie and TV projects would be complete without the original intro to the 1992 Batman animated series. The great reworking of the movie theme, the story-within-a-story, the effortless evocation of the 1920s-styled noir of the show itself. Truly, we shall not see its like again.
